Archive for the ‘Fiat 1107 Campagnola’ tag

Not all of the remaining ports of call for the Hemmings Mediterranean Cruise had old cars to ogle – and I’ll discuss why in another post – but the ones that did all had their unique flavors of cars. For instance, we stopped in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on the fourth day of the cruise, and found a city and country full of newness: a new highway system, newly built houses and hotels and bridges, new cars plying those new roads and new bridges. The reason for all the newness lies in the nearly complete destruction of the country during the war there a decade and a half ago, reminders of which still exist just about everywhere you look. Yet we saw plenty of these Renault 4s. Never got much of an explanation for their presence there.

Skipping our next stop, Venice, I’ll move on to Sicily, where Heather and I came across this Fiat 127 while climbing the mountain to Castelmola. While not exactly rural, the area of Sicily we visited wasn’t exactly urban either, so the cars here looked a little older, a little more beat-up.

Once we got up to Castelmola, we tripped across this Piaggio Ape on one of the back alleys. Some of the graffiti on it read “Hippy Car,” but we ultimately determined it was connected to a local pizzeria, either as a delivery vehicle or as advertising.

Down the mountain in Taormina, the town had a Fiat 1107 Campagnola parked away.

Our next stop, Barcelona, didn’t afford much car-spotting opportunity, but Monaco proved a car-spotter’s paradise. Ferraris were about as common as Cadillacs in Texas (probably largely thanks to a tourist-centered business that allowed people to drive a Ferrari around the Grand Prix circuit for 150 Euros), and the ultra-rich cars became thicker the closer you got to the casino. It was also in Monaco that we saw the only real vintage exotic of the trip, a Lamborghini Miura, parked downhill from the casino.

We also saw an inordinate number of Mini Mokes. Again, I didn’t get an explanation.

Smarts are, of course, commonplace all over Europe, but this Brabus-tuned Smart sitting outside the Mercedes/Maybach dealership was far from commonplace.

While I’m off-topic and talking about new cars for a moment, I might as well mention that Italian cities have the world’s hottest cop cars – Alfa Romeo 159 four-door sedans.

And, rounding out our ports of call, in Florence, we came across plenty of electric city vehicles like the above Pasquali, a three-wheeled tandem two-seater.

I couldn’t find anything about this particular car on the elektrocar.it website printed on the car’s flanks.

And finally, this Ligier Nova that we walked past apparently suffered from a nearsighted driver. Or else it falls apart at the slightest bump – not an attribute you’d want in your car were you to drive in Italy.